


workplace decorum

by hawrthiacoopri



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Boss/Employee Relationship, Gen, M/M, Multi, Office Romance, Pining, Pre-Canon, Pre-S1, Pre-Slash, Unrequited Love, because obviously, chubby martin blackwood, i wrote this in six hours, jon being repressed, love triangles (but all the sides connect), martin being oblivious, sort of? its touched upon its one of my fav tropes, tim being himself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:16:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24198091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawrthiacoopri/pseuds/hawrthiacoopri
Summary: Approaching the threshold of the breakroom brings with it the sound of flustered protests that Jon barely has time to process before he’s walking through it and, oh.Martin is sitting on Tim’s lap.Martin is sitting on Tim’slap.
Relationships: Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims/Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Tim Stoker
Comments: 12
Kudos: 306





	workplace decorum

**Author's Note:**

> jon starts noticing that tim flirts with martin. like, a lot. and isnt very keen on it. martin gets very flustered bc he wants jon to care for him extremely badly bc hes got that Trauma, u kno? thats it thats the story. i'll probs write more pre-s1 soon lol anyways this is it for now enjoy x

Jon has never been a big fan of change. 

No. Scratch that. Correction: Jon has never been a big fan of things he likes changing. And he had liked his research job, hadn’t he? Well enough, at least. He’d had purpose, free reign over his workload (which he kept heavy), a pretty decent desk neighbor. He’d had routine. But when the head of the organization you work for wants to promote you, what are you supposed to do? Say no? Jon may be stubborn, but he isn’t an idiot.

So when Elias had offered him the position as Head Archivist (and yes, the capitalizations were included), Jon didn’t say no. He’d simply smiled, tight-lipped, and asked when he’d start, and Elias had grinned that unsettling grin and handed over the contracts. As if he’d already known Jon would say yes. Maybe he had, who knows? It didn’t matter now. What mattered now was that Jon had been the archivist for almost two months and he was no closer to finding where the hell the mess Gertrude Robinson had left him ended. His entire archive (because it was his archive now, he reminded himself, he’s responsible for it,) was in complete disarray. All this time, and he’s barely made a dent- he and his assistants, he means. Of course. He’d picked two of the three upon Elias’s request- the third had been appointed by Mr. Bouchard himself, though Jon couldn’t fathom why. 

There’s Sasha James, a bright young researcher who’s been doing practical work since the beginning of her tenure at the institute, and whose work has so far been very much up to Jon’s snuff. Tim Stoker, the other assistant that Jon had requested (and his aforementioned decent desk neighbor) is admittedly affable and more than capable, though his work was often lacking the thoroughness he so enjoyed in Sasha’s. And then.... Well, _then_. Then there was Martin. He.. His work was up to no such snuff.

Standing in the lift as he’s making his way down to his office, he decides that was really all there was to think on the matter.

… Okay, okay. He’ll at least think about Martin.

How does one describe Martin Blackwood? Privately, Jon likes to think of him the same way he thinks of the tea he loves so much- he can be sweet, assuredly, but easily overmuch so and quite devoid of any substantial content. Yes, Jon is satisfied with that analogy, even if he’s certainly no poet. It perfectly encapsulated the things about the clumsy assistant he has the most distaste for; both Martin’s almost sickeningly tender personality, and his absolutely nonexistent talents in the areas of archival protocol, computer programs, or literally any other skill he thinks could possibly be conceived for the role of an archival assistant. 

Thinking about this makes Jon feel a familiar aggravation pinch at his eyebrows and he shakes it off as he steps out of the lift’s sliding doors and into the quiet cool of the archives. He’s still smugly mulling over his perfected analogy in his mind as he pushes open the door to his office, and he flicks the lights for the assistant’s office on the way in. He’s here a bit later than he usually is, since he’d had to fill up his oyster card, but he’s still in no danger of running into anyone else down here for at least another hour. That’s almost always the case, so instead of wasting any of that time Jon sits down at his desk and abruptly loses himself in sorting the first pile of paper he grabbed (a pile of contact records for statements taken from 1995-97). By the time he looks up it’s half past nine, and he can hear Tim’s familiar greetings to Sasha and Martin. 

Oh, christ. Already? He braces himself with what comes next.

“Morning, Sash!” comes the cheery line, and then in a much less flippant tone, “and good morning, Martin.” Jon rolls his eyes at the intention that even he can feel dripping from those few words. He can hardly guess what comes next, he thinks drily to himself, and then quickly goes back to pretending he isn’t listening to the same conversation he listens to every day from the other side of his office door.

“Hiya,” is what ends up coming next. “Your tea’s on your desk.” Martin sounds… well, like he normally does, a tad bit like a kid caught in a cookie jar but generally pleasant (so disenchanting, Jon thinks, very firmly,) but like it does every day, it seems to make Tim light up from the inside.

“What, really? Martin, you’re lovely!”

“It’s on your desk every day, Tim.” Jon silently agrees with Sasha on this. 

“Well, yes, but it’s the principle of the thing, isn’t it?” Tim’s chair squeaks as he apparently sits down and rolls over to presumably Martin, based on the surprised sound that’s made nextdoor. “Any old day, Martin could decide not to make me tea. But every day, he does it. First thing as I walk in. Knows how to make a guy feel special, Martin does.”

Jon is tuning out this conversation. He IS. He’s letting his subordinates banter and make small talk in the morning while he does paperwork, like a cool and good boss. He is not listening to the same ridiculous routine of intricate rituals they go through every day. He is not getting irritated at the giggle Martin lets out at the last thing Tim says.

“Can you cook anything else, Martin?”

“Hm…” Jon can almost picture Martin’s eyebrows furrowing, the way his button nose must be scrunching up as he considers. Except, wait, no he can’t, because Jon doesn’t ever picture anything like that about his assistants, and especially not Martin. “I can make pastas? And a pretty good full english. But that’s about it. Erm… why?”

Tim sighs in disappointment and the sound of desk chair wheels is heard as he rolls back to his desk “Damn. I was going to ask if you’d ever think about making me something other than tea, but tea it is. Unless you’d want to cook me breakfast sometime, I mean,” he adds slyly, and Jon can’t pin exactly what about that feels salacious but he knows he’s not a fan. Martin and Sasha, however, seem to know exactly what’s being implied- Sasha’s boos almost cover Martin’s nervous cascade of laughter. For the second time, Jon can almost not-at-all-picture Martin’s red, freckled face.

“All right, Casanova. You’ve proven your point. Those statements aren’t going to investigate themselves.” Thank god for Sasha, Jon thinks. It is not the first time he has thought that, and it definitely will not be the last. 

As Tim acquiesces and the three assistants settle into the chatter of work and leads and verification, Jon lets himself have a moment of frustration at this whole performance Tim has to put on every day.

It had started almost as soon as they’d moved into the archives. Every day, Martin would get into work before Tim and Sasha, but after Jon. Every day, he makes tea for Tim and Sasha before they arrive, and puts it on their desk. Every day, he makes sure to tell them it’s there (something Jon found extremely unnecessary and twee, who needs a reminder for a service Martin did every day?). And every day, Tim preens and goes on about it as if Martin had done… Well. Something better than making a cuppa, which was already as fundamental to his existence as breathing, or making Jon cross. Some days, it was calling Martin an absolute lad or something equally silly. Others, though. Well. Jon struggles to forget the day Tim had said after he took the first sip, “fuck, I think I love you,” in what Jon suspected was the breathiest voice he could muster. Martin’s usual reaction of quiet tittering had actually turned to words for once and he’d scolded, scandalized as anything: _“oh, Tim-!”_ before the man was laughing it away and bouncing off to grab a statement file from storage, calling behind him, “you wish, though, huh?” 

Martin hadn’t replied to that. Jon pretends that doesn’t nag at him now. He’s still pretending as he hears a quiet knock, and he clears his throat as he straightens in his chair. “Yes, come in.”

Martin’s head of blond curls pokes in and he smiles warmly at the archivist as he does indeed come in, setting the World’s Best Archivist mug the assistants had gotten made for him as a promotion gift onto the coaster that they’d given to him with it. “Morning, Jon,” he says shly, and Jon looks up from the papers to see Martin’s face is still a little pink. Okay, that definitely annoys him, he can feel the way it makes his heart twist like every other inexplicable little thing Martin does, but he pushes down the urge to scold the man for something so admittedly stupid and hums his response before flicking his eyes back down. He doesn’t miss how Martin’s face falls at his dismissal. “How’s your morning going?” He’s still trying today, Jon supposes. Probably Tim’s fault, riling him up right before he comes in to see Jon, like he does every morning. Lord, why does Martin come see him every morning again?

“Expectedly.” The word is almost lost in the air between them with how clipped it is, but Martin seems satisfied for now. 

“O-oh, okay, great! Well, I’ll just be. You know. Yeah.” he backs out of the office, his eyes still on Jon, and his hip bumps the door all the way open. He smiles apologetically for his bumbling and offers Jon a final wave before disappearing out of Jon’s line of sight. The door closes with a little click. 

The barely contained eye roll spills out as soon as Martin’s out of sight, and Jon huffs out a sigh.

This was probably going to be a long day.

\--

Jon tries to make it a point to eat lunch in his office. He knows from the (minimal) leadership seminars Elias had shipped him off to that he is, technically, encouraged to engage with his ‘team’ in appropriate social settings, but it was just… Eating around other people is a bit weird. He hasn’t really done it since high school, since the only person he regularly ate with in university was Georgie, and that was different. Even though Sasha could be known to be able to carry a conversation about his obsession of the week for much longer than even Georgie, that didn’t mean everyone else in attendance could say as much for how Jon trusted them to keep up with him. Tim could sometimes, but he teased and prodded and joked in a way that Jon didn’t appreciate in front of a group as much as he had when it had just been them two, together, in research. And Martin… was Martin. 

But on this specific day, Jonathan Sims has been forced to enter the kitchen, because he has brought a microwave lunch. Approaching the threshold of the breakroom brings with it the sound of flustered protests that Jon barely has time to process before he’s walking through it and, oh.

Martin is sitting on Tim’s lap.

Martin is sitting on Tim’s _lap_.

The annoyance Jon feels flare up in his chest is even more immeasurable than it is when he catches Martin doing things he doesn’t approve of, because hey, what the fuck, _Martin_ is sitting on Tim’s _lap_ , and he clears his throat just as Martin’s finishing laughing out a ‘please, Tim, I’m too heavy for this-’` and then he’s turning around and Jon’s apparently struck them both dumb because even as he stares up at Jon, Tim’s arms are still wrapped tight around his waist. 

“Ah,” says Jon, because he is very well equipped to deal with the sight of soft, round, sturdy Martin with his back pressed to Tim’s slim chest, who has his gangly legs akimbo in the already small room, and he is not at all rattled. “What’s all this then?” He’s trying to go for casual, but he’s much too heavy on the imperiousness for it to land.

“Hello, boss.” Tim says it so smoothly you would almost forget that he has a man twice his size, his goddamn coworker, sitting on his lap. His hands slide from holding his own elbows across Martin’s stomach to rest on his hips, and Jon doesn’t miss the way Martin’s face gets ever redder. He still doesn’t move an inch. “Come to enjoy lunch with us, have you?”

He doesn’t have time to entertain Tim’s little games of tet-a-tet, so he just says “no. Why is Martin sitting on you, Tim.”

“Well, he wanted a seat, and I’m as good a seat as any, wouldn’t you say?” Tim’s expression is such a picture of innocence as he puts one hand on Martin’s frozen knee that Jon wants to slap it off his face. The implications Tim can expertly layer into a simple sentence would be impressive if they weren’t being used to subtly remind Jon of the fact he’d been in the exact same position once, twice, a dozen times on late nights of research in past years. He absolutely refuses to let any color into his cheeks, and it comes in anyway. Martin is just watching with a god-help-me sort of look, his eyes flicking between where Tim’s touching him and back to where Jon’s _staring_ at him. 

“Quite. And since you’re just as good as any, he can sit on a chair of his own.”

Tim makes a low noise of disapproval, and tightens his grip on Martin’s hip and knee. Ever accommodating, Martin only squirms a little bit. By this point Tim’s staring daggers at the archivist, even though his lips are curved in his usual mischievous smile. “C’mon, boss, don’t be like that. He’s comfy, aren’t you, Marto?”

Martin seems surprised he’s even being addressed in a conversation about himself, and he pushes his hair back up on his forehead as he bites his lip, stressed. He’s looking back and forth between the two men conducting a staring contest over his head- Jon’s eyes are full of something he thinks might be affront or suspicion, while Tim’s simply smiling conversationally back at him.

If he could read eyes better, he’d see that Tim’s were veritably gleaming as they teased Jon. ‘I see what’s happening,’ they would say knowingly, ‘but I don’t think you do. Not yet.’ If he could read eyes better, he’d know that Tim was right about him not knowing, because Jon’s are as unfathomable and dark as they ever are behind his wireframe glasses in their confusion at what he’s feeling. It feels like anger, or frustration, like wanting to squish a small animal, but… softer? More gentle than squishing, more of a desire to hold than anything. Strange, that. 

Jon ignores his desire and doesn’t wait for Martin to respond, as is customary for Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist. “In case you have forgotten, you are in the workplace, Tim. Please reserve your _flirting_ ,” and the word is spat out as if it doesn’t quite fit in his mouth, “with our coworkers until you’re off company time. Now and at all other times.”

“What, jealous it’s not you?” The ambiguity of what, exactly, Tim means by that gets to Jon in a way nothing else really can, just like most things about Tim. Because if there’s one thing Jon hates, it’s uncertainty. 

Jon manages a spluttered, “pardon me?” and Tim’s smile widens imperceptibly. He opens his mouth to reply, but Jon’s already well on his way into whatever chapter of his mind he’s decided to rattle off to them today. “I- first of all, Tim, I’m your superior, and I’d greatly appreciate you not extending your- your solicitations to me for that reason. And every other reason! Those too. Second of all, no, I’m not jealous. I- well, in fact, if we’re going to be discussing it, I believe even Martin deserves to be left well enough alone while he’s working without you- you distracting him, and such. It really, really is not appropriate to put your hands on your coworkers, Tim,” he ends lamely, and he immediately regrets bringing this up when he sees how over the moon Tim looks at this emission.

“‘Even Martin’?” Tim repeats, and Jon flushes to the tips of his ears when he realizes the extent of what he just word vomited. Martin is similarly red, and he looks about ready for the floor to just open up and swallow him already. 

“Um. That is to say. I’ve noted some rather unprofessional behavior from you, towards him, and. Now is as good a time as any to bring it up.” The steam Jon had been running on from the aggravation of this whole situation was weaning fast as he watched Martin stare fixedly at the linoleum and Tim rub infuriating little circles into his sides. Well, Jon doesn’t know if they _feel_ infuriating, but they certainly are to _watch_. The way they sink into the give of Martin’s hips is… incredibly distracting, for a reason Jon doesn’t quite grasp. He doesn’t really think he wants to.

The look on Tim’s face is one of such complete satisfaction that Jon wonders if he didn’t just walk into some kind of television show setup. He looks like the cat who just got the most expensive of creams. “Unprofessional?” The voice he’s using is one of great faux sincerity, and Jon has the urge to slap him again. “In what way?”

The steam is completely gone now, and Jon’s shoulders fold in as he tries to think of the least humiliating way to say, ‘I’ve been eavesdropping on you flirting nonstop with my least favorite assistant every morning for weeks, and I know you’re doing it more where I can’t hear, and I hate it’ without sounding incredibly suspect of… something. He refuses to acknowledge what. He knows there isn’t one, so he just settles for the authoritative glare he knows Tim at least respects enough to back off from when he gets. He holds his hands up in surrender (and somewhere, satisfaction curls far inside Jon at the knowledge that in doing that Tim’s hands aren’t on Martin anymore) and gently nudges Martin off his lap. The man stands up, his eyes glued on Jon as he does so, though he quickly averts them when he sees Jon is looking back. He mumbles something about needing the loo and walks as fast as he can without running out of the breakroom. In his hurry he doesn’t even think to say goodbye to Jon, which Jon pretends not to notice even as there’s a pang in his chest. 

When Martin’s finally where he was hoping to end up, sitting in the large stall of the archives restroom, he lets out a much-needed breath that he feels like he’s been holding for years now and buries his head in his hands. Jon had… what had he done, exactly? Martin still isn’t clear, never is when it comes to what Jon’s trying to do, but he knows it feels very, _very_ close to something that is going to throw off his entire beat.

Martin had known from the moment he’d met Jon that he was gone. It was embarrassing, honestly, how easy it was for Jon to just trap him, never to let him go without even noticing. All it had taken was that first meeting, Martin stuttering out an introduction and offering a sweaty hand to the slight, inquisitive looking man who Mr. Bouchard had told him is his supervisor, his archivist now. Jon had accepted the hand and shaken it lightly, and OH, his hands are so much smaller than Martin’s, his palms nearly cover Jon’s whole hand, and that definitely did something for him. But then, everything about Jon had immediately done that same something; his pin-straight, well kept hair, the dainty chain on his glasses, the dark furtiveness in his eyes that reminded Martin of a deer. Everything else that he’d notice later- Jon’s narrow waist under his collared shirts and cardigans, his soft mutterings when he’s focused, the way he bites at pencils and pens when he’s thinking. Jon had just said a dry hello and moved on to the next of his tasks, but Martin had been glued to the spot for minutes, smiling dazedly. He’d thought without the barest of criticism, ‘I think I just met the most beautiful person in the world.’

Over the first few weeks, though, it has become clear Jon had no such opinions of Martin. It was in the way criticism was never spared, greetings never returned, conversations dropped on one end. Martin didn’t care. He already knew he was going to get some flack, what with the whole faking his CV thing leaving him skilless for a corporate job like this, and coming from someone as pretty as Jon, Martin couldn’t bring himself to care too much unless he was being particularly nasty. Even then, Martin had plenty of experience loving people through the nastiness they served him, and he just kept bringing tea and saying good morning and trying his best not to stare. He’d started to get into the rhythm of it, started to get into the groove of how Jon operated and slotted himself in as neatly as he could. When Jon’s leg was bouncing, bring him some tea. When he’s biting his nails, don’t bother him if you can help it. If he’s curling his fingers through his hair while he reads statements, he’ll be too distracted to notice you watching from the doorway. 

He’d started to accept that Jon didn’t care for him, had even started the beginnings of something resembling coping. He’d had a split second pity party for himself the first weekend of the job, but Martin was determined not to get himself fired for pining over his admittedly very attractive boss. That was the deal: Martin could think about Jon as much as he wanted, as long as he kept knowing Jon would never reciprocate. That had seemed safe.

At least, it did, until Jon stomped all over it and tossed it into a flaming garbage can by showing that, yes, he not only truly knew Martin’s name, he also connected it to who he was as a person, and he had opinions about how Martin should be treated. 

Positive opinions.

Oh god, this is even worse than he thought. 

It’s just because he’s Jon’s employee, right? He’s just being a good boss. Any boss wouldn’t want their employees sitting on each other's laps, for god's sake. But the way Jon had looked at him… it really, really hadn’t felt like the way a boss looked at an employee. He honestly didn’t know how it felt, he only knew that when Jon had said what he’d said Martin had felt his heart _squeeze_ and his eyes danced and he’d felt faint. ‘It really, really is not appropriate to put your hands on your coworkers, Tim,’ it had been, and even just remembering forces him to hide his face in his hands. The way he’d said it hadn’t even been that affected, it was just the fact that he’d said it all, and- and that _look_ in his eyes. He’d been looking at Martin like… like he was something to protect. 

No. No, no, no. This was all in Martin’s head. He knew it was. Still, the thought of Jon being protective of him, possessive, even, is something he can’t shake now that it’s there. Martin tries to imagine, as he often does, how Jon’s hand would feel in his, his arm on his waist, around his shoulder. Bosses being protective of their employees could be normal, right? He could get there, one day, if he tried. If he could be- could be valuable enough, could be essential enough, Jon would likely have to be protective of him. And oh, wouldn’t that be nice, Jon _having_ to protect him, the way Martin feels like he _has_ to adore Jon. Jon keeping him close by his side, wanting to keep an eye on him, being worried about him. 

Martins knows it’s pretty sad that just thinking about this makes him happy so happy he could cry, but he can’t help it. Whatever cruel god had chosen to make his boss exactly his type _and_ completely emotionally unavailable was probably getting exactly what it wanted, and he was happy to give it, because what choice did he have? Jon was clever, and interesting, and gorgeous, and Martin was only so strong. Maybe this was just how things were meant to be, even.

Martin stands up from his place on the floor where he’s been bunched up and ignores the cramp he’s given himself in his thigh. He really needs to get back to work before Jon gets snappy or Tim comes in asking if he fell in, like he always does, the prick. Jon’s right, he really needs to stop joking around with Martin like that. Putting hands on him, as Jon had said. He catches himself in the mirror as he passes it on the way out. He looks normal enough, he supposes, round face no longer completely scarlet, his freckles actually visible, and he tries to smile at himself before he gets back to work.

“Martin Blackwood, you’ve got this.”

And for a second, maybe he almost does.


End file.
